SANTO DOMINGO — Leaders of the Dominican Republic’s National Council of Border Business Owners and Merchants have publicly stated they trust President Luis Abinader will deliver a balanced, consensus-driven ruling on a controversial proposal to build new dry ports across the country’s border provinces.
In remarks delivered during a strategy gathering at the council’s Santo Domingo headquarters, organization president Carlos Morillo Valdés, widely known by his nickname “Chijo”, commended the president for his open approach to collaborating with the nation’s productive industries. Morillo emphasized that the group remains confident the presidential administration will thoroughly review and weigh its concerns before settling on any final outcome for the infrastructure project.
Morillo did not soften the council’s core objections to the plan, however. He issued a clear warning that siting new dry ports directly along the Dominican border risks upending the long-established patterns of cross-border trade between the Dominican Republic and its neighboring nation. If implemented without adjustments, Morillo argued, the project could threaten the livelihoods of more than 13,000 independent border merchants and an estimated 100,000 additional workers and family members whose incomes rely on the stability of binational commerce.
The council used the meeting as an opportunity to restate its core demand: any final decision on the dry port proposal must emerge from inclusive, good-faith dialogue with all affected industry stakeholders. The organization stressed that balanced policy must both advance the government’s goal of sustainable regional economic development and protect the existing border trade ecosystem that supports tens of thousands of working Dominican families.
Beyond the dry port debate, the gathering also allowed attending business leaders to assess the current health of binational trade, brainstorm new initiatives to bolster commercial activity along the border, and map out strategies to expand economic opportunity for communities that have resided and operated in these frontier regions for generations.